


every word you say (finds a home in me)

by lightningalwaysreturns



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Nonbinary Hange Zoë, a brief lazy character study ish thing, ch 105, onyankopon is here!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 22:21:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningalwaysreturns/pseuds/lightningalwaysreturns
Summary: The flight of the zeppelin sailing low into Liberio neared something close to silent. Armin couldn't get his mind off of it.





	every word you say (finds a home in me)

**Author's Note:**

> That Look in 105 was so gay i had to write smth abt it even if it did come out short as hell

The flight of the zeppelin sailing low into Liberio neared something close to silent. Armin couldn't get his mind off of it. His parents would have heard the fire blazing that lifted their balloon into the sky before it came crashing down around them in massacred tatters—

He glanced over at Hange, who stood behind Onyankopon and navigated both sky and building rises together with him. Those two were nothing like Armin’s parents, but the scene made him blink nonetheless.

They wouldn't be shot down. Couldn't afford to be. They'd come for Eren, for everyone; they didn't have time for bullet holes.

Hange fell into familiar commander mode, collaborating with Onyankopon at the helm. The sound of their low, strong voice settled something essential in Armin.

“You came up with one hell of a reckless plan,” they told him. “Did you get possessed by Erwin's ghost or something?”

Outside, quietly, while Armin turned his face away from Hange’s, a rumble buzzed heavy through the cloud-thick air. He gazed past the pit into the darkness beyond wide windows.

“I wish I had been… if it meant giving us strength,” he said.

His shifter lines receded as they healed.

***

The lights in the war zone went out—because that was what happened in a city where children became collateral damage, where dogs dug graves with their teeth—until the only illumination that survived called them to their soldiers.

To the center of the battlefield.

Darkness, death and devastation on a scale that Armin forced himself to face because how could he not?

***

The telltale _thunk_ hit the broad side of the ship, and he hurried over to the open door. Their first reports had already come in—he reached his hand out.

Eren started when he glanced up and saw Armin’s face in the light of the cabin. Mikasa was behind him, but she lowered her eyes, the way she always did whenever she was around them, no matter what Armin said about that embarrassing them more than needing privacy. She insisted.

Now, he understood why. With the cabin lights silhouetting him, he could see himself so clearly in Eren’s wide, unspeaking eyes—his remorse reflected all over his face even though his hand stayed steady. Between them, a bridge, even now. Waiting.

They really did generate an atmosphere of intimacy around them, but Armin couldn't feel bad about it. His heart was everywhere except his chest, and Eren’s hand clasped tightly around his, a perfect fit, just like always—of course, it did.

So much had changed; this much, this touch, had stayed the same.

Eren’s shifter lines ran longer down his face than Armin’s. They both took an extra second longer than needed to catalog it before moving away.

Levi loomed.

So much had changed, after all, and war had been declared.

No—Eren had declared war. Those shifter lines told the story of how he'd done it. Armin's, too.

Their eyes didn't meet again the rest of the long ride home.


End file.
